Leonard Nimoy Endorses Two-State Solution for Israel-Palestine

Leonard Nimoy, who became famous as the Vulcan “Mr. Spock” on the classic US TV series “Star Trek” has urged Israel to adopt a two-state solution in order to resolve its crises with the Palestinians.

Nimoy, who is Jewish, wrote an open letter on the website of Americans for Peace Now, a non-governmental organization, in which he discusses is support for a two-state solution and said he is “is troubled to see the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians continue apparently without an end in sight.”

The former First Officer of the USS Enterprise describes the two-state compromise as a secure democratic Israel as the Jewish State alongside an independent Palestinian state.

The 80-year-old actor noted that even Israel's nationalist Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu “has come to see this as the shape of the future. The problem is how to reach that end point. It's something we should be concerned about--not only as world citizens, but as Americans.”

Nimoy even used the plot of an episode of Star Trek called “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield to delineate his position.

Two men, half black, half white, are the last survivors of their peoples who have been at war with each other for thousands of years, yet the Enterprise crew could find no differences separating these two raging men, he wrote.

But the antagonists were keenly aware of their differences - one man was white on the right side, the other was black on the right side. And they were prepared to battle to the death to defend the memory of their people who died from the atrocities committed by the other.

He added that “the time for recriminations is over. Assigning blame over all other priorities is self-defeating. Myth can be a snare. The two sides need our help to evade the snare and search for a way to compromise.”

He also pleads that only with a two-state solution can Israel’s “security, prosperity and continued viability as a Jewish and democratic state” be ensured.

To bolster his view, Nimoy cited that many prominent Israeli citizens, even the former heads of the Mossad intelligence agency and the Shin Bet national police force have called for the formation of two states.

“The Palestinian-populated areas of Jerusalem would become the capital of Palestine; the Jewish-populated areas the capital of Israel,” Nimoy proposed.

However, he also adds that the two-state solution will not appease extremists on either side.

We cannot know yet what this unification of Hamas with Fatah means and we have to wait and see what emerges, he wrote.

Regardless, the principle of establishing two independent states, one Jewish and the other Palestinian, is still critical in this region for both Israel and the Palestinian people. That is the goal, to support the rational and moderate course.”